random musings on life and such

Normally I post my blog each Wednesday but today I cannot seem to get any real inspiration. My insides feel both empty and over-crowded at the same time. Surely someone can relate to me here…it’s just one of those days! So, due to my current disposition I am only posting photographs this time around. Thanks for bearing with me and please enjoy this lighter post.

IN MY SILENCE

It’s as if I am trailing just behind the light…

Hovering in thin air, detached, and without a base.

It’s as if winds and waters and grasses and trees are all in motion around me…

The Akuntsu are one of the isolated tribes ofRondônia, Brazil. They are a tribe that numbered around 7000 members no longer than fifteen years ago, but sadly have only five remaining today. Five! In order to make further “progress” in the areas of cattle ranching and soy cropping, big business thought it proper to plow down their homes and murder their families.

Two days ago I was readingthis article and learned about the Akuntsu. I am obviously not the first to bring them up or to be touched by their story. Perhaps though, I will be the first to pose this particular question about their relationship to us: What could it be in so many of us that responds/feels a loss upon hearing their story? Seemingly, the life of the Akuntsu tribe has very little to do with our own. Or does it? When we see or hear their story it resounds with something in us. What part of us is so tenderly related to them? There is a type of solemn knowledge of their hardship, shame, simplicity, and pride. Could it be that their story resonates with us so strongly becausewe sense a sort of shared destinywith them? You might ask how it is that we could share in the destiny of a near-extinct civilization that lives across the world, and if you did, I would answer that the Akuntsu have fallen a victim to big business as have we! Not to racism, not to poverty, not to illness; they have lost all but a scrap of their culture to big business alone.

I’m pretty sure that where ever you’re sitting, you do not feel like an indigenous indian who has seen scores of family members die. You don’t feel like a man who knows matter of factly that his family name will not survive this decade. You don’t feel like a person being forced to fall gracefully off the cliff of existence. Feelings however, are not fact and we are most certainly also victims of a sort of genocide. At this point, even in America most people know that big business supports progress by any means necessary. By any means neccesary…what does that mean? It means that when it comes to “progress” and industry and big business, genocide is historically a small price to pay. In the day-to-day most of us either do not think about these types of things or we assume that big business only willfully murders somebody else. However we are also Akuntsu in the eyes of industry. The number of deaths directly resulting from big business are entirely too much to count. Unlike the blatant disregard served to the Akuntsu, genocide in America goes on in quasi secrecy. From the poisoning of our foods, to the usage of mind-controlling subliminal messages, and so much more; we too are in the midst of a long silent genocide.

We can easily mourn for those victims of genocide that do not resemble us or live like we live. We can lament the tragedy of their dying culture with sincere and heartfelt tears, as we should, but how few of us are lamenting the dying of our own. Big Business’ ‘by any means neccesary’ idealogy has poisoned our children, our parents, our friends and co-workers. We cannot walk past or meet any person in America that is not affected by big business. Whether or not we’re aware of it is another question and that question leads me full circle. The pain we feel, that pain we see in the photographed eyes of the Akuntsu is the pain of knowing. Unlike us, they were confronted with bullets and bulldozers. They have the facts straight in the form of bloody images imprinted always on their minds and endless wailing that rings in their ears. Right now we have only weak bodies and feeble minds. However, I submit that what resonates within us regarding the Akuntsu story is that we know they are not different from us at all. They make us aware again of the bulldozers and bullets that are otherwise so easy to forget and either over or under-look.

The message: Death does not worry about the level of our consciousness, but only carries out his orders. Just because you are not naked, in the woods, clinging to your last four relatives does not mean that genocide is not happening to you. The Akuntsu and so many indigenous peoples before them have left us a message in their all too human eyes and that message reads, You Too!

Surely we have all encountered these gravely dissatisfied people in our lifetimes. You know the ones I mean. Every other sentence is a complaint. Good things rarely seem to happen in their lives. They tend to be suck-ups and tattle-tales; always eager to make themselves look good while constantly pointing out the faults of others. These types of people are generally bad listeners. If you tell one of them that there was a recent death in your family, they straight-away begin to tell you how that’s just like what happened to them once. No comforting words. No real concern. If you tell them a piece of good news, they immediately break into how something their own life just recently fell through or fell short. No congratulations. No celebration. To put it simply, these people can suck the joy out of almost any room and seem to expend great amounts of energy in effort to do just that. They are nay-saying, side-ways talking, day-dreading pains in the asses!

So how do we co-exist peacefully when working or living closely with these people?

1. Ignore the crap! We don’t have to ignore them in general, but when they begin to prattle on and on about how hard their life is or to complain about the same thing they always do-tune them out. That sets a boundary with them and maybe they’ll pick up on it. If they stop getting a response and eliciting our sympathies, maybe they’ll stop.

2. Stop sharing with them!If we stop including them in our own experiences we also stop the disappointing, selfish, let-down of a response that we generally get from them. Likewise, if we cut them out of our daily tidbits they may just get the point. Again, we are attempting to set a boundary.

3. Break into song and dance!Whenever the crab apple in your life goes into one of those ridiculous bad moods because life isn’t going their way at that moment…break into joyful song and dance. This will irritate the crap out of them and disarm them. If you don’t even acknowledge their tantrum and above all don’t let it change your day they will have failed in bullying the environment around them with their negative nancy shenanigans.

4. Above all else RESOLVE in your heart that you will no longer be a victim of the grumblers!No one likes to be a victim anyway right? Right! The longer that we allow these sour apples to spoil our days, the longer they will! They have endless energy in the area of day-wrecking and unless we resolve ourselves to be un-influenced, we will continue to dread every sight of them and every hour spent in a room with them.

I suppose we could also trip them every chance we get and make fools of them at every possible turn. While that may bring us some or great satisfaction, I urge you to implement the four step process first. This will function as a sort of “due process” for the bitter people. If due process does not work however, and you find yourself still tortured by some relentless Grumpy McGee, by all means resort to this last/un-numbered method!

Long ago in a world that we can only now imagine, the earth was teeming with magical creatures.

There were Elves (originally seen as spirits of the dead) that aided in fertility and were respected seers and healers. Dwarfs inhabited caves, tree hollows, underground tunnels and were renowned laborers. Dryads presided over forests, each one protecting a specific tree and punishing those who brought or sought to bring it harm. Unicorns roamed the sacred earth and were sought after for the healing power of their horns. Dust filed from these horns could allegedly resurrect the dead, reverse poisons, and counter-act disease. Fairies blessed new-born children with gifts like kindness, beauty, and riches. Flesh hungry Ogres haunted men who had wandered off the beaten path. Nymphs & Satyrs protected the mountains and rivers and springs.

Those days are long gone now and any rational idea of these creatures seems like lunacy or child’s play in our progress-saturated world, but let it sink inthat once these creatures existed as fact and held a place in the collective human conscience.

As I thought about a time when these creatures were not myth but held as truths, I couldn’t help but wander what had changed. My questions are directed at both you and myself. Where has this magical, mystical, creature-filled world gone? Has magical earth disappeared or left us due to our own lack of acknowledgement of it? Have we plowed it down to make way for housing and cities and roads? Or, is it still there: looking, tip-toeing around, holding private congress. Are these magical creatures still intervening in human life, still protecting the earth, still healing?

While some people (mostly children & gifted individuals) do claim to have regular interaction with mythical, magical, or otherworldly beings; the fact remains that general belief in these creatures is no longer a common fixture in the human conscience. Why not? In my mind there is a chance that men were originally/naturally imbued with a sort of paranormal sight, enabling them too see and experience the magic and mystical elements that surrounded them. Perhaps as time moved forward and men became more and more progress/fact minded their sight became dulled to those things of a spiritual or paranormal nature. It is quite possibly the curse of modern man that he has forsaken his original mythology and therefore cut himself off from Magic and all his wonderous creatures.

With that thought and all those that will linger after it, I sign out of my first blog post hoping that magic was, is, and ever will be. To live in a world without magic seems no worse to me than to live in a world absent of words and the privilege of expression.

Hello to all! My name is Amber Brown. Soon I’ll be posting blogs here and hoping that you will take the time to read and respond to them. Before I begin I’m going to take some time to explore the blogs of others in hopes that I will get a taste for things that work and don’t work. If you have helpful suggestions or ideas, do not hesitate to contact me at 59teeth@gmail.com. I have written for a long time but have yet to share my ideas or thoughts.

I hope this will be a fruitful adventure for both me and the readers (assuming there’ll be more than one). Until the first real blog…happy trails and many blessings!!!